Wake on Lan, but not on Lan. Wake on Wan?

[Joose]

Halps.

Is it possible to trigger WoL without being actually on the LAN in question? I have remote access to my home computer, but that's of bugger all use if the thing has gone to sleep. Not a problem if I am at home as I can just use WoL to shake it into usefulness, but what if I want to connect via teh internets from somewhere remote? Getting the actual remote connection itself wasn't that difficult, but I cant find any way of waking the thing up from the internet. The only option I can think of at the moment is having something permanently on attached to my LAN so I can remote into that and WoL whatever I want from there, but I would rather not have something sat there turned on the whole time just for the rare occasion I want remote access.

Is it possible, or am I boned?

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Depends if you can convince your router to forward magic packets I suspect. DMZ could be an option if not, but that's a whole other pain in the arse.

[Joose]

Apparently that *may* be possible. Lots of conflicting reports of success/failure on the Virgin Media support site. I'll give it a go when I get gome.

[fabyak]

Can you set up your router to do it?

[Thompy]

Buy a £10 phone on PAYG, set it to vibrate and put it next to your mouse, ring to wake!

That's a solution, right?

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I was thinking similar things.

[Joose]

Buy a £10 phone on PAYG, set it to vibrate and put it next to your mouse, ring to wake!

That's a solution, right?

[Dr. kitteny berk]

http://www.ispyconnect.com/ + Your house phone, if it sees the phone ring, the computer can do things!

More complicated, has to be better, right?

[buzzmong]

Install OpenWRT or dd-WRT onto your router if possible?

If it doesn't do what you need it to out the box, I suspect someone will have written a small program or kernal extension to make it do what you need it to do.

[FatherJack]

Just TCP and UDP forward a port of your choosing to the PC in question and try it with a WOL program that lets you specify that port number, such as http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/wake-on-lan-gui.aspx

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I had an idea for this the other day...

Procure mobile phone, small relay (normally open), solder relay on wires to phone ringer and across power switch jumpers, text/call phone, boot computer.

Al Qaeda should have an appropriate circuit diagram online.

[ProfHawking]

While you are at it, why not turn on your PC, no matter where it is in the world, via the Iridium satellite network!
Recently got to have a play with this: http://rockblock.rock7mobile.com/ - very nifty kit.

In all seriousness, a raspberry-pi would be ideal for this. It could sit merrily on your LAN waiting for commands, and remotely control your PC/Lights/Heating/Toaster etc

[Joose]

In all seriousness, a raspberry-pi would be ideal for this. It could sit merrily on your LAN waiting for commands, and remotely control your PC/Lights/Heating/Toaster etc

Actually, that's a stonking idea. And somewhat less likely to put me on a government watch list.

[buzzmong]

Actually, that's a stonking idea. And somewhat less likely to put me on a another government watch list.

Fix'd

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Incidentally, how would a pi handle a little video transcoding?

I'd rather like a low power server box for downloading and serviio whoring.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I suppose the other option is skipping the transcode and using more pi for the telly end of the deal.

[Joose]

I've seen a bunch of guides for using the Pi as a media box for your telly. You can stick XBMC on there, and even get a specially built bolt on IR receiver for it. Perfectly capable of playing HD, apparently.

Theres also guides for setting them up as little NAS boxes and such, but apparently they don't work too well for that as far as stuff like HD video streaming goes. I don't understand why.

[ProfHawking]

go for it! The Pi makes a really cool home-automation thingy. You can get ready made relay boards to control stuff, like this for not much money.

Its fine to stick a USB hdd to it and make a nas, but don't expect it to transcode stuff like a proper PC, its still not that powerful. It can only handle playback in HD as it can efficiently offload this to its graphics core. I tried XBMC on it (both openelec and Raspbmc) and the interface is SLOOOOW to say the least.

They do make good little headless audio players though.

[mrbobbins]

I've seen a bunch of guides for using the Pi as a media box for your telly. You can stick XBMC on there, and even get a specially built bolt on IR receiver for it. Perfectly capable of playing HD, apparently.

I'm using 2 for this at home, NAS under the stairs and a Rpi in the lounge and bedroom velcroed on the back of the TV.
No need for a remote control add on as the main TV remote works to control XBMC over HDMI and in the bedroom I use my phone with an XBMC android app.

It all works really well (Except the XBMC iplayer app which stopped working a few months ago)